Bodies and souls
by FPB
Summary: Two lovers. Two bodies. The wrong mind in the wrong body.


Bodies and Souls  
  
By Charles Dickens  
  
Harry spotted Hermione from far away, and his heart started racing. It was strange, considering the magnitude of his problems – problems that would send the average sixteen-year-old into a terminal tailspin – and the extent of his responsibilities, but lately all he could think of was Hermione. He should be mourning Sirius; but his mind was on her brown eyes. He should be watching out for Voldemort; but his eyes were on the swirl of her hair. He should be concerned for his friends and fellow-students, always in the shadow of danger as long as Voldemort was alive; but what he could not help but think of was her immense vitality, the running pace at which she took her life, her slender, fine, spring-like figure.  
  
It had begun during his previous summer. After Mad-Eye Moody's threats at Platform 9 ¾, a sort of uneasy balance had been reached. The Dursleys left him strictly alone, to the extent that he was allowed to make his own meals (a mixed blessing at best!); he had frequent wizarding visitors, who however, in deference to the Dursleys' prejudices, came either by night or in Muggle clothes. And it was curious how much his wizard friends seemed to tread on eggshells around him. Everyone answered his questions politely; there was a mighty show of keeping him informed about developments in the War; and certain arguments – in particular, the deaths of Cedric and Sirius – were left strictly alone. Harry noticed this new policy after a while. They acted... they thought as though he was still the raging, unhappy teen-ager of the previous year, exploding at the slightest provocation. Did they not understand? – he sadly smiled to himself. The death of Sirius had been the most terrible lesson he had ever learned in his life. If it cost him his own soul, he would no longer head off like a maniac in the first direction, never again refuse advice or take action without thinking it over fifty times. (At least, that is what he had promised himself.)  
  
But it had been at this time that Hermione had begun to insinuate herself in his thoughts. There was a day when she had come to visit, in normal Muggle clothes; a day of sun and soft clean breeze, and they had taken a walk through Little Whinging and Whinging Woods. As soon as they were deep enough in the woods together, they had taken to the air on his broom. Hermione had ridden pillion, like Muggle girls on their boyfriends' bikes, and he had felt her weight on him, her delicate arms and hands clutching him for dear life, the breath going in and out of her rib-cage, her bushy brown hair whipped by the wind. He had felt a sudden urge to impress her, and had performed, in succession, a Wronsky Feint and a complete loop-the- loop, holding her fast with one muscular arm while the other directed his broom with unerring accuracy. Hermione had screamed and turned pale, and he suddenly was reproaching himself: you fool, don't you know that flying scares her? Why did you show off like that? Suddenly he felt attuned to her desires, her needs, what did and did not matter to her; and very ashamed of himself for his selfish bravado.  
  
He had let her down, almost shaking with fear; but he was conscious that to start loudly reassuring her would have been entirely the wrong thing. He gave her time to compose herself, and then they sat down together, Transfiguring a few pieces of stone and wood into the ingredients for a picnic. And they had chatted. Harry felt as though he were seeing her for the first time: the exquisite peaches-and-cream complexion, delicate and even, the bright tinge of her hair, her sparkle and animation – immensely feminine, and yet as energetic and straightforward as any man or boy he had ever met. Then she asked him to perform some acrobatics for her – to his immense surprise. She said she wanted to watch him from the ground and really see what he could do. At first he thought this was just her kindness – letting him off for giving her that scare; but she insisted, and he was really tempted. There was nobody before whom he would rather show off the best of his flying – except Malfoy, perhaps, for wholly different reasons; and he allowed himself to be convinced.  
  
Up, down and all around; looping the loop six, seven times, changing the angle of rotation until he was flying sideways parallel with the earth; threading his way through the trees at a speed so mad that he always looked like crashing, yet missing each tree cleanly; rising vertically only to go into a classic Wronsky Feint, ending, however, not in a sudden brake, but in a change of direction without reducing speed, and closing with a dazzling piece of his own invention – a series of dives, loops, and threads, at the end of each of which he picked a flower from the ground without dismounting, to conclude with a dead stop right in front of Hermione, offering her the bunch of flowers with a smile; and being rewarded by the laughter, the clapping hands, the light in her eyes.  
  
That night, he went to sleep holding a pillow tight to his chest and feeling her presence as if she were in his arms. And the morning after, he could not help talking about her, even to the unsympathetic Dursleys. Dudley simply shook his bovine head in irritation; but, after five or ten minutes of Hermione, Vernon Dursley – of all people! – turned his moustached, ruddy, ham-like face to his wife... and grinned. She smiled back: she, too, had understood. It was the first time in their lives that they had ever thought of Harry without hatred or fear.  
  
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Hermione remembered it well too. She had needed no revelation, no sudden or slow awakening. She had loved Harry almost as long as she had known him, and been conscious of it... goodness, for how long? Months, at least. When she knocked at the Dursleys' door that August day, her breath had been so short, her demeanour so nervous, her eyes so bright, that anyone less blind than Harry (whose experience had made him used to rejection and lack of love) would have known. But she did notice how his eyes, dull from worry and boredom, suddenly shone at the sight of her; and his swift, unstoppable smile just burst her heart – as she was later to put it – into little tiny bits. (And how Parvati and Lavender giggled at the description!) She thought of her hand nestling casually in his – don't stampede him, girl, don't throw yourself at him! – as they walked through the manufactured lawns and expensive suburban houses of Little Whinging. Some were lovely, but many left them both with a feeling of revulsion; and it was sweet to her that Harry shared her taste – the same love for the simple and unpretentious, the same fondness for bright and sweet-smelling flowers, the same feeling for the absurdity of the more pretentious designs. Outside a particularly overdesigned mansion, Harry had made her laugh almost to tears by observing with a perfectly straight face: "A man starts on a job. He works hard for twenty years. He does all the right things, gives the boss all the right answers, and bit by bit he climbs. Finally he's made it. He's successful. And what does he do with all his success? He builds this."  
  
She thought of the welcome green of the trees, right at the edge of the housing development – which, she had observed to Harry with a grimace, meant that the development had probably been carved out of forest. Trees did not show off; trees did not indulge in absurd tricks or in empty monumentality; trees had no tasteless ego to feed. They asked nothing and offered – well, they offered beauty; and whether the beauty was something implicit in them or something that human beings alone ascribed to them, Hermione did not care. She just breathed in the clean air and looked at the patterns of dappled sunlight through leaves, and thought... well, she thought of Harry. How well he was growing, in spite of the stupidity and indifference of his guardians; tall and lean, with a long striding walk that was really beautiful to see. He moved through the forest as if he belonged there, as if it was as open to him as his own home or Hogwarts. How unselfconscious he was, she thought; how unaware of his strength, of his grace – no wonder the prophecy had singled him out for the hero of the age. But then, Hermione thought, I would have loved him anyway, prophecy or no prophecy. For a second, Hermione felt that there was nothing better, nothing more, nothing else, to life, than this – a man, and a woman; a woman, and a man. But that was stupid, she reminded herself. There were many other things – work, study, research, politics. But she knew that, however good those things might be, ten thousand books and ten thousand victories could not have replaced one Harry for her.  
  
He drew out his broom, and she thought, I should have expected this. Flying is his life as much as study is mine. Trying hard not to show her fear of height, she let herself be arranged sitting pillion, certain, at least rationally, that he would not let her fall; knowing, before it happened, exactly what he was going to do – and still unable to prevent herself from screaming when it happened. She felt horrible; she was so attuned to his feelings, his thoughts, his desires, and now she knew that he would feel horrible for her. And for the life of her, she would not have wanted him to feel horrible.  
  
Luckily he showed exactly the right kind of tact. He did not go into exaggerated or grovelling apologies that would have embarrassed them both – just allowed her to compose herself, and then laid himself down lazily on the grass, looking like a wood-god in jeans and a t-shirt – sexier than Brad Pitt and Richard Gere combined. Hermione sneakily took a couple of wizard photographs while he was not looking, and made a mental note to have them enlarged to place among the posters in her room.  
  
Then she had her stroke of genius. It took some persuasion, but finally he climbed on his broom and let himself go completely – the maddest, most daredevil, most breath-stopping display she had ever seen. She was impressed, struck, fascinated, and another thing – she was happy. She did not want him to feel in any way unhappy or depressed or disappointed, when he thought about their all too short times together: she wanted him to remember them with pleasure – and she was sure that he would do so this time.  
  
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Neither of them spoke to the other, then, later, or even on their return to Hogwarts. They lived with an unadmitted yet mutual thrill (had they but known it). To each of them, the other was the most unique thing in the world: something that stopped the heart when seen, that was sought for constantly, yet with an underlying fear – to be offensive, to be wrong- headed, or to find out, quite simply, that the beloved loved another. After all, there was no shortage of candidates! Hermione could remember Cho Chang – and had to admit that she was far prettier than herself; and sometimes wonder about that leggy, red-haired dark horse, Ginny Weasley, and whether her pre-teen crush on Harry had really died out. As for Harry, he had spent two years with Hermione's stellar dancing partner, Viktor Krum, on his mind. Viktor was a friend; but he was also better than Harry at anything Harry valued or could measure. Harry was a first-class Seeker; but Viktor was the finest Seeker in a generation. Harry was brave, but he was willing to admit, without a shadow of jealousy, that Viktor had shown the most astonishing physical courage – and had done so in front of Hermione, at the World Championship. And while Harry did not feel jealous of Viktor's wealth and popularity – he had quite enough of both himself – he would have given his soul for the one thing that Viktor had and he did not: a loving family. And Harry, like so many gorgeous people, had not the least idea that he was good-looking, let alone heart-stoppingly handsome: to him, it was simply obvious that anyone who had to choose between him and Krum would do no wrong if they chose Krum.  
  
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So it was that, when Harry spotted Hermione across the corridor, and she spotted him, their hearts started racing. Unfortunately for them, they were standing in a certain piece of a certain fourth-floor corridor that was particularly dear to Peeves the poltergeist. Long ago, he had discovered that an ancient, mischievous and unusual spell had been left active and in power in this particular spot, probably for centuries; a spell that operated only in very unusual circumstances, but that, when it did, afforded the poltergeist what he regarded as terrific entertainment for weeks or even months. Peeves had got into the habit of trying to suit events to the spell. Earlier that same day, he had made a determined attempt to make the spell work by trapping two apparent lovers (Seraphina Honeyduke and Colin Creevey) in the right place; but either their feelings for each other were not strong enough, or they had kissed before. Anyway, the spell did not work for them, and Peeves flew away on his own, disappointed.  
  
However, as a result of his earlier activities and his curious notion of how to drive lovers to each other's arms, there was a large puddle of water still on the floor, precisely on a place where the wall torches did not show it very clearly. And as Harry and Hermione moved towards each other, each trying desperately not to look as if they were running, they did not pay attention. Hermione's foot slipped, she lost her grip on the slippery floor, and Harry, trying both to dodge her and to stop her falling, also lost his balance. Their foreheads came together with a sickening crack, and, after a second of terrible pain, the next thing they knew was that they were getting up from the floor, their heads aching, their limbs still quivering from the impact.  
  
But... but... there was something else. Something which, at first, they did not take in at all. Nobody is ready for the unexpected; not for the completely unexpected. If one day three suns rise in the sky instead of one, it will take some time before people begin to notice it; for a while, they will simply assume that the light comes from one sun and one alone. And if you wake from sleep suddenly changed into another kind of being, it will be some time before you feel anything more than a vague sense of unease.  
  
For Harry, it was the surprise of looking in front of himself – and seeing himself. Unmistakeable, even though it looked strangely different from the mirror. For Hermione, it was opening her mouth and hearing a man's voice – at first she did not recognize Harry's, for voices sound very different to the speaker as to those around him. But it was, beyond any doubt, not her voice; nor any woman's voice she had ever heard. Then she looked down and saw her hands – large and unlike hers – and long legs, and jeans... she looked ahead of herself, at the person before her. She saw...  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I think..."  
  
"I think so too. We've switched bodies."  
  
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Now the obvious thing to do would have been to go to Dumbledore; but for some reason, the idea stuck in their throats. They had an instinctive revulsion about revealing their current condition to anyone – it was as though there was something shameful about it, or at least something peculiarly embarrassing. And it is true that if the story had gone around the school, they would never have heard the last of it.  
  
So they tried to disguise their condition for a few days, while they feverishly researched mind-swap spells and charms, spending all their time in the library. This had the advantage that they spent very little of their free time among the friends who could most easily be expected to notice something strange; but for the ordinary lessons, their friends might think they had vanished. Yet people noticed, and noticed very quickly. Hermione was seen to be inattentive in class, and her answers were few and sometimes confused. Harry in Hermione's body quickly became horribly embarrassed at the humiliating display he was subjecting his beloved to; and as a result, "Hermione" became, for a while, very shy.  
  
The person within Harry, of course, had the opposite problem: classes became torture for her, as she had to repress the instinct to constantly raise her hand, and try and judge, whenever she was asked a question, how much Harry could be expected to know – try not to make him either a dunce or a sudden, unexpected supergenius. So, while Hermione was seen to slide visibly back from the academic star everyone knew, Harry developed, out of the blue, an utterly uncharacteristic nervousness. This was a young man who always answered with confidence, even when he had nothing to say, and who had often impressed Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and even Slytherins by talking back to Snape in class; now, for the first time in five years, he was seen to grow confused and stammer.  
  
Meanwhile, their constant absence from the Gryffindor common room meant that they did not notice that their friend Ron Weasley had something on his mind. He was nervous and silent, sometimes so caught up in his own thoughts that he did not hear what others said, and more than once lost chess games in uncharacteristically poor style. On an ordinary day, one of the two could be trusted to notice his mood and get the trouble out of him in about twenty minutes; this time, he was alone for three days, tense and worried, to the extent that everyone – except his friends – noticed his strange mood.  
  
Harry and Hermione's unreasoning embarrassment about showing their condition did not grow any less as time went on. It began to dawn on them that their paper-thin cover was cracking, and that soon some sort of reckoning had to come; but they could not bring themselves to make the first move. They waited fatalistically for a note from Dumbledore, a sarcastic remark from Snape, or a gale of laughter from classmates suddenly alerted to their condition.  
  
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As the week was coming to an end, Ron was still concerned with the thoughts in his head. He had to speak to Hermione soon, and he just couldn't face it. Perhaps, Harry? Yes, Harry might... And so caught up with his own urgent problem, he did not notice a tall shadow following his through a deserted corridor; until he suddenly felt a thought in his head that was not his own.  
  
He tried to scream; he tried to struggle. But no sound came. And his limbs would not obey him.  
  
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"Harry! HARRY! Where have you been lately?"  
  
"Well... if it comes to that, where have you been? I never seem to come across you these days." That was a clever retort: Ron was sure to make a quick exam of conscience to wonder whether it was he who was at fault after all. "I guess we no longer have so many classes together, but all the same..."  
  
"Well, I know, mate. I'd hate to feel that our friendship was drifting away."  
  
"Same here, Ron, same here. As far as I'm concerned, we're still the Three Musketeers and always will be."  
  
"Good. Because, Harry, I need to speak with you. I need advice."  
  
Hermione was a bit disconcerted. Boy talk and man-to-man advice weren't, for obvious reasons, the things she felt most at ease with. But she schooled Harry's face into a look of bland and friendly interest, and said: "So tell me."  
  
"It's about... Well, it's about Luna."  
  
"Luna? Luna Lovegood?"  
  
"Yes... You know the Lovegoods are neighbours of ours. I've known Luna since we were children, but vaguely. You always meet her in the country lanes round our parts, doing silly things like counting butterflies and trying to learn the language of birds.  
  
"She's scatty, that one. She'll go out without shoes on her feet and never even notice it, or with mismatched stockings. But after a while, you know... especially since we've been at Hogwarts together... it's weird, but I was starting to look forward to meeting her. She said such odd things that it was stimulating just to try and see whether they made any sense.  
  
"And then I started to feel that there was something very lovely about all that scatty stuff... I can't explain it, mate. She moves about like a ghost, sort of... her skin is like mother-of-pearl, and so are her eyes. She is like a... like a candle flame seen through clear glass. She carries her own light with her.  
  
"I just felt I wanted to be with her more and more. You know, I never thought I would fall in love at all – I've seen my brothers going through it, and it always seemed pretty silly..."  
  
"Ahhh. So you and Luna are engaged?"  
  
"Not so much that. I mean, we haven't had sex yet. But the operative word is 'yet'. Well, I call it going out together, the way Mum describes it."  
  
"Well, this is terrific news, really," said Hermione; and she meant it. Not only did this free her from Ron's misguided possessiveness, but it joined him with a girl whose best feature was that she was so undemanding, that she always accepted people as they were. "What is the problem? Don't tell me that you quarrelled with her, because I won't believe you. To quarrel with Luna is impossible."  
  
"No," answered Ron, more flustered and confused than ever, seeming to want to tear his steeple hat into tiny bits. "The thing is, mate" – and what with his obvious embarrassment and stutter, a great light went on in Hermione's brain, "the thing is, how do I tell 'Mione?"  
  
Hermione felt a rich enjoyment welling up inside her. This was a time to twist Ron's tail as she had never twisted it before.  
  
"Well, mate, I'd watch out if I was you. You know our 'Mione, she can be a bit irritable... Just make sure she hasn't been near Draco Malfoy in the last few hours, or she might explode. Or Snape. I certainly wouldn't give her any bad news just after a Potions class... And whatever you do, don't mention house-elves... and leave her strictly alone if you know that she has just had a political discussion about them. And watch if by any chance she's been reading the PROPHET. Oh, and avoid any time when she has just had to put up with Luna's views and be polite to her... you'll be able to tell by the steam coming out of her ears... And at any rate, well, of course, you will have to be sure it's not her time of the month..."  
  
Hermione was loving this; she was having a hard time keeping Harry's face straight, as expression after horrified expression chased each other across Ron's face. "Don't worry," she concluded brightly to a thoroughly alarmed- looking redhead, "I'm sure you'll be quite all right."  
  
"I have to think about it," said a dazed Ron. "Harry, I'll see you again later... maybe it would be less trouble to dump Luna after all..."  
  
Hermione's mood went from enjoyment to horror in a split second. She had only wanted to have some fun at Ron's expense; she had not wanted to come between him and Luna, who, though perfectly exasperating, was a sweet creature and deserved her bit of happiness. And she certainly had not meant to suggest that Ron should start to court her again! His silly jealous feelings had led to dozens of rows, and at any rate she was now clear in her own mind that it was Harry, not Ron, that she wanted. She impulsively ran after him.  
  
And the hidden intelligence that had been riding Ron's body and mind like a horse, letting him say his little piece as he pleased, but never releasing him from his hold, was pleased. Here came his prey, at last, exactly in the position he wanted him.  
  
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How Lord Voldemort had laughed when the distracted, nervous teen-ager had come within his reach; an inner, silent, deep laughter at the kindness of fate, that had placed Harry Potter's own closest friend within his grasp. Voldemort knew Ron Weasley all too well: the brat of the red-haired clan that had always opposed him and done most to sway the whole wizarding community against him. It was all too natural that the boy should become the closest friend and one of the most effective helpers of his ultimate enemy, Harry Potter.  
  
Well, said Voldemort in Weasley's mind, to the captured spirit of his enemy. It's about time one of you red-haired pests served some decent purpose. And the soul of Ronald Weasley, conscious but bound, quivered with horror.  
  
After his two debacles with the Triwizard Tourneament and the prophecy, the Dark Lord had decided that his plans had been too elaborate. A plan of many parts meant many things that could go wrong – the glass holder of a prophecy being smashed during a fight – an underling in disguise precipitately taking Harry Potter away from the field and arousing Dumbledore's suspicions. No, he thought – this time simplicity will be my friend.  
  
Simplicity in conception did not mean simplicity in execution. Lord Voldemort had stationed himself, invisible and imperceptible, at one neglected end of Hogwarts' magical precincts. Sheltered by the highest degree of magical protection, he had started slowly, delicately, elaborately undoing the wards that protected Hogwarts, one by one. It was the work of weeks, not of days; weeks in which Lord Voldemort might advance, maybe, no more than a centimetre or two a day, or sometimes be thrown back a good fifty metres by an unexpected reaction. But he had managed his two great objects – remaining unperceived, and keeping his magics unperceived. Early that morning, he had unbound and reworked the last ward; and suddenly, for the first time in fifty years, here he was – in Hogwarts again. And who should fall first into his hands, but the friend and son and grandson of his enemies? Really fate had been too kind.  
  
Voldemort summoned Lucius Malfoy, and, without saying a word, explained to him mentally what he wanted from him. Malfoy was instantly, instinctively repelled; his master felt his disgust, and was delighted. Malfoy, more than any other Death Eater, had to prove himself to him, and therefore would do what Voldemort wanted, and do it well. Then, with a gesture, he altered his whole physical being. Lesser wizards, even his own underlings, might need Polyjuice; not Lord Voldemort.  
  
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"Viktor!"  
  
"Her-myon-nin!"  
  
Well, that's an improvement, thought Harry. He's lost the final y, at least. He liked Viktor well enough, but his pronunciation had long since ceased to be a joke, and become merely exasperating. Strange that a young man with such command of the English language should speak it so incomprehensibly. He did not wonder what he was doing at Hogwarts: the famous Viktor Krum could evidently go where he wished – and the fact that he was now addressing Hermione Granger told, to Harry's mind, its own story.  
  
What bothered Harry most, however, was the tone that the conversation quickly took. It seemed that Krum and Hermione's relationship had gone further than anyone understood. Harry was having to keep his face straight while Krum spoke to him – as Hermione – with the familiarity and affection of a man who is not only in love but feels certain of the woman he is with. And as they walked around the grounds of Hogwarts, Harry felt that he was calmly, insidiously being lulled into a sense that it was natural to be in each other's arms, to talk with each other intimately, to take each other for granted.  
  
He was not surprised when they took a certain path from Gryffindor house.  
  
Lucius, after all, was an Old Hogwartian himself, and had pleasant memories of seductions of both sexes. At night, Hogwarts lovers (the school was famously lax in its attitude to relationships between the sexes) tended to crowd the Astronomy Tower; but Gryffindors of both sexes, and their lovers, also had a favourite daytime place, intimate and exquisite. The Angela was the only remainder of a pre-Reformation nunnery: a small herb garden with a well, extremely pretty, and of course delightful-smelling, surrounded by a hedge, with a view of the sea south and west, and overlooked by a thirteenth-century statue of an evidently female angel with wings, that looked like it had once decorated the outside of a Gothic cathedral. Here, where once nuns had prayed in their seclusion and grown vegetables and medical herbs, came young couples in search of solitude and romantic sunsets; and here Lucius intended to swallow hard, metaphorically stop his nose, and kiss a Mudblood for the first and last time in his life.  
  
As they walked the path to the Angela, the atmosphere grew perceptibly intimate. Harry's acting was leaving him astonished; evidently, several years with the Dursleys had got him more used to disguising his mood and views than he realized. His mind and soul were rioting with all kinds of emotions; his personal admiration and respect for Krum, his love for Hermione, his desire for her, his desire that she should be happy, the sense that he should not come between her and the man she loved – if that was the case... it must be said that poor, tormented Harry never did anything more heroic than he did that afternoon in Hermione's body, when he courted for her, against himself, the man he honestly thought she loved.  
  
On the other side there was far less heroism and far less unselfishness, but an equal dose of self-compulsion. Lucius hated Mudbloods, and he especially hated Hermione Granger. He was having to force himself to look on her as a legitimate object of lust, a pureblood witch of his kind and birth, to silence the sense of revulsion that the very thought of her brought to him. And it is perhaps partly for that reason that his conversation as Viktor was so full of malice, of the satisfied denunciation of others, of poor opinions of Karkaroff and of his comrades in the team. Lucius knew all the gossip and every wizard worth knowing, and he had heard plenty of credible accounts of bitching and in-fighting in Durmstrang and in the Bulgarian national team, which he now managed to pass on to Hermione as if he had been there himself. Harry was surprised: he had never heard Krum speak with quite this bitter and personal accent, even on the memorable occasion when he had denounced Karkaroff with a few well-chosen words. He came to the conclusion that Krum must have been pretty unhappy of late.  
  
Then they got to the Angela, and the atmosphere changed. Krum was not speaking of others any more, but of Hermione and her beauty and the difference she made to him.  
  
"I haff never met anyone like you, Hermy-own-nin. You are slim and pretty and you don't think whether I am rich and whether I am famous and whether.... You just do your work and then you turn to me and you see me as I am. You know, don't you, that I love you?" And Hermione just nodded.  
  
This, no doubt, was Lucius' masterpiece of seduction; finding the right words to lure into his arms a girl whom he detested. And he managed it; within five minutes of their arrival into the Angela, they were kissing under the statue's eyes.  
  
But a thought flashed through the Death Eater's mind, even as his lips were on hers, soft and warm, even as he noticed that she was by no means bad- looking, even as he felt her body breathing in and out in his arms: they were alone here, and this girl, no less than her male friends, had been more than a nuisance to the Dark Lord in the past. He had been given no orders to kill; but he doubted whether the Dark Lord would have minded.  
  
It never happened. It was Lucius' bad luck the kiss had to be witnessed by that the most unlikely and undesirable person possible: his own son. Draco had gone into the garden, away from Slytherin house, to have an angry brood about the injustice of the world – his father a runaway from Azkaban – his mother, whom he honestly loved, banished from polite society – Pansy Parkinson's gutless parents pressuring the girl to loosen her relationship with him, now that the Malfoys were no longer respectable... sometimes he felt that even Crabbe and Goyle might drop him. The last thing he needed was to see the girl he detested most in Hogwarts having a snog with a rich and famous partner.  
  
"Well, well, if it isn't the Hogwarts Celebrity Uglies," came the sound of an all too familiar drawl, as the kiss had not yet broken up. "Duckfoot and Mudblood."  
  
Both Harry and Lucius favoured Draco with looks that would have made daggers look friendly. But their glares worked the opposite of what they meant. Draco was in a mood to make someone pay for his humiliations, and now he could now share his misery with Hermione Granger.  
  
"Mind you, I can see how Rosie Chipmunk, the Bush that Walks like a Woman, might want to seduce a duck-footed hook-nosed round-shouldered alien who has only made a fortune from Quidditch in the last few years. She's been quick on the job," he declaimed to an imaginary audience, "Krum has only recently become famous and has years of earning potential still before him. Tell me, Muddy, when's the divorce for, and how much are you going to stick him for alimony?"  
  
Harry was pale with fury. The foul insinuations of the gentlemanly, silver- haired boy were not meant for him, but he suddenly felt as if his own honour, rather than that of his friend, was being dragged through the mud by someone taking the pose and role of a Gentleman. Hermione's eyes narrowed.  
  
"Just because that is what you would do, Malfoy, it does not mean that anyone else would think of it. Scum is as scum thinks. And in case you hadn't noticed, the Angela belongs to Gryffindor House. Nuisances from other houses are not welcome."  
  
"It is open to all Hogwartians and you know it, Mudblood. Especially those who have a better right to be here anyway... those who actually belong among wizards."  
  
"Funny 'ow reddy some people are to insul-lt the blood of others when their own is in Azkaban or in fligh', righ'?" said "Krum" with an insulting tone; but Draco, his eyes fixed on Hermione, missed the desperate gesticulations of his disguised father.  
  
"Yes, Malfoy. How long before they send your Death Eater mother to Azkaban to keep Daddy warm?"  
  
Draco went two shades paler, and clenched his teeth. "I told Potter before, Mudblood: don't mention my mother. You can say what you want about me, but..."  
  
"You mean it's not from her that you learned to be 'the slut of Slytherin'?"  
  
Draco pointed his wand at a bucket that was standing near the well; Hermione ducked, and the bucket caught Krum straight in the face.  
  
Something is extremely wrong here, the mind in Hermione's head thought. That mind understood Krum in the special way that sports players understand each other. Viktor is clumsy, it thought, but only in walking; only because normal human feet do not match the swiftness and precision of his winged, airborne senses. He would never let a Bludger hit him, let alone a bucket; let alone one that he saw coming. He is grumpy; but he does not take pleasure in others' pain. This person is not Viktor Krum.  
  
The thought was no swifter than the deed. The person who walked with the supposed Viktor Krum was not the brilliant scholar whose form he wore; he was perhaps less accomplished, less widely read, less able to understand and to reach conclusions – but he was a young man of action, whose life had prepared him to act instantly when danger was perceived. He formulated the thought – he noted a sudden disturbance in "Viktor's" face – he has read my thoughts; he is a legilimens – he drew his wand - a single, fluid motion – Stupefy! And the person in Viktor's form fell without a word, his own wand only half-drawn from his robes. He had started to react, but Harry had been too swift for him.  
  
(Draco could have helped his father, but, as soon as he had seen his bucket hit Krum, he had left, worried about the repercussions of striking a famous guest. He never saw what happened to the supposed Krum or why. Several months later, his father was to explain to him – with great clarity – exactly how stupid, let alone cowardly, his behaviour had been.)  
  
Now Harry/Hermione, having seized Godric Gryffindor's sword, was running across the Gryffindor corridors, shouting orders as he went. "Seamus! Go find Dumbledore, there are disguised Death Eaters in the castle! Parvati, Lavender, there is one of them in the Angela, stunned – disguised as Krum – go get him and keep watch! Katie, go warn McGonagall! Colin, Dennis, Dean, Angelina, Ginny, come with me – Ron and... and Harry are in deadly danger!"  
  
Nobody stopped to think or ask. The Gryffindors charged like a storm through the corridors and out the entrance, leaving behind a ruffled and thoroughly startled Fat Lady. They raced across the grounds, and a stray, bewildered Slytherin (of all people!) volunteered that he thought he had seen Harry and Ron wandering off towards the far side of the lake.  
  
They were met by a strange and dreadful sight. Ron's body lay stretched on the ground, utterly unconscious. Harry's body was shaking and jerking like a puppet on badly managed strings, as two figures, visible partly within him, partly above him in the air, fought for control. On one side, a ghostly image of Hermione was desperately struggling to avoid being expelled from the body; on the other, the skeletal, immensely tall, and all too material figure of Lord Voldemort, already partly sunken into Harry, was exerting all his magical power to drive her out.  
  
Voldemort was in a rage. Everything had gone well until he had tried to make the jump from Ronald Weasley's possessed body to Harry's; then he had met with resistance – a resistance of a desperate power and stubbornness that he had not expected. This body was already occupied; the mind that held it was not native to it; but she loved the man to whom it belonged, and it was all too clear to her what his fate would be if this monster managed to seize his body. She would die rather than allow it.  
  
Voldemort, too, understood that; he understood that one emotion, and one alone, explained the desperate, inch-by-inch, and quite incredible struggle that the fragile spirit before him was putting up. And he was hampered by not wanting to kill her, for he suspected that if she died defending Harry Potter's body, her sacrifice would only have added to the magic that his dead mother had already woven from her own death for his protection. So the mightiest magician of the age, whose power could have turned Hermione, body and soul, to dust, was only trying to drive her from Harry's body, to be left a bodiless spirit in the wind.  
  
But he never completed his deed. "You shouldn't have attacked the woman I love, you know," said a female voice behind him. In one second, Voldemort – who was, after all, the most brilliant wizard of his generation – knew what had happened; he had engineered enough body swaps himself. But it was too late. Before he had time to turn, Godric Gryffindor's sword, held two- handed by a frail but firm female grip, bit into his neck; and before he could react, a second blow struck his head clean off.  
  
It was not the end, of course. It could not be; Voldemort could not be killed by such simple means. The headless body simply bent over and picked up the severed head, and, one moment later, the horrible twofold thing was gone.  
  
"I take it that when we next meet, he will have his head back on," said Hermione's body grimly, as they turned to help poor Ron, who was slowly struggling out of unconsciousness.  
  
"I'm afraid so," said Professor Dumbledore, who had appeared, followed by a panting Seamus Finnigan, just in time to witness the beheading. He was not even shaken by the sight. Now he looked at the figure of Hermione, with Godric Gryffindor's sword held firmly with both hands, and at a dazed, semi- conscious Harry. One glance, it seemed, was enough for Dumbledore to understand. For one second, his eyes went wide with surprise; then he said simply, "I see." He then addressed the assembled Gryffindors: "The bodies of Harry and Hermione have swapped minds... not of their own will, I might add. I have met this kind of magic before." There were looks of swift understanding among the Gryffindors: that explained the strange behaviour of both in the last few days. Nobody had any idea how such magic could even exist, but nobody thought of disbelieving the Headmaster, either. Ron, who was still recovering from Voldemort's spells, took a bit more than the others to get there.  
  
Dumbledore turned away from them and left again. Everyone burst into talk, except for Ron; but in his aching head one realization was dawning inch by inch. When Harry had made that frightening speech to him, "he" was not Harry; he was Hermione. It was she herself who told him of her terrible temper and the many times when she was to be left alone. It was she who had heard his confession about Luna; and she had not exploded or said anything. Surely this means that she is happy for me? She was just having me on... twisting my tail... a kind of behaviour Ron knew well enough from his life with his twin brothers. A grin slowly spread across his features.  
  
Suddenly Dumbledore was among them again, holding Peeves by the scruff of his neck. The poltergeist looked even smaller in the hands of the tall ancient wizard. "I think," said Dumbledore amiably, as though nothing special had happened, "that it is time for this particular trial to end. And I am sure that our friendly neighbourhood poltergeist will be more than willing to help... won't you, Peeves?"  
  
"Of course, Professorhead, of course," whined the small, limp figure, looking like a kitten in its mother's jaw. "It's not my magic, you know, you must understand, sir, Professor, sir... it's a spell left over from before my time, I don't even know who placed it there..."  
  
"I never said anything else, Peeves. However, you know how the spell works, don't you?"  
  
"Yes... yes, headmaster, sir... They must simply lock lips again. It is the second kiss of true love that does it."  
  
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, bewildered: they had never "locked lips" in the first place. "Kiss of true love?" they asked in a puzzled chorus; and Peeves realized that they had not, until that moment, been aware of each other's feelings.  
  
(Meanwhile, Luna had stumbled upon the scene in her rambling way. But she had seen Ron still wounded and in pain, and her eyes had suddenly become more focused, her actions more direct.)  
  
"Aren't you two in love?" Peeves whined piteously. "The spell is not supposed to work unless you are in love..."  
  
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Harry was frankly baffled. "Well," he said, twisting Hermione's face into a very attractive expression of bewilderment, "I know I'm in love with Hermione, but I never heard that she was in love with me. I thought it was Krum..."  
  
"Harry, you great big oaf," answered Harry's own body, in Hermione's unmistakable impatient tones, "where were you when Viktor and I broke up? It was sweet and nice and no harm done, and that is all there is to it! Viktor is engaged to the daughter of the Peruvian Minister of Magic, if you want to know." Then Harry's face grew softer. "There is only one person I love and will ever love, and I am standing in his body right now."  
  
Harry felt as if his spirit were breaking with the power of a bursting dam. He was incapable of words... beyond his hope, almost beyond his dreams, this was; the thought of Hermione in his arms, the thought that she might actually feel about him as he felt about her... life, life together. Incredible. And she was crying... crying his tears, crying in his body, crying because she loved him. Nobody else but him. Incredible. Incredible!  
  
"Well, of course you do!" said Peeves, who seemed nearly as impatient as Hermione – keen, perhaps, to be released from Dumbledore's grip. "If you two weren't in love for life, the spell would not work. It only works on true lovers. Come on, kiss!"  
  
And they did.  
  
They both enjoyed it; and had felt, beyond a doubt, in the touch, the feel, the vibrancy of the other, the personality and soul of the one they loved. But nothing... nothing changed. Peeves looked horrified, Dumbledore surprised.  
  
"Of course, you would tell me the absolute truth, as far as you know it, Peeves."  
  
"Yes, Professor! Yes! Yes!"  
  
"So how come the reversal spell has not worked?"  
  
"I don't know, Professor... I swear! Hey, you two – that was your second kiss, wasn't it?"  
  
"No, it wasn't" answered the person with Hermione's face. "We had never kissed before" added Harry's voice.  
  
"But... butbutbut... how on Earth did the spell activate?"  
  
Hermione's face grinned. "We bonked our conks." "Slipped and bashed our heads together," added Hermione/Harry, feeling perhaps that Harry's explanation had been a bit on the slangy side.  
  
Then, at the same instant, Hermione/Harry and Peeves looked thunderstruck. "Wait a minute..." "You don't think..."  
  
"Yes," Dumbledore answered their thoughts more than their words, "evidently the mere fact that their heads came together... as they were in a state of true love... was enough to activate the spell. But clearly the reversal spell was more tightly phrased... the second kiss of true love, and nothing else."  
  
"Again! Do it again!" said Peeves impatiently.  
  
They nervously touched each other's lips again. They felt nothing. But suddenly their eyes were looking in a different direction, and seeing a different body: suddenly it was the person they loved that stood in front of them. Harry impulsively punched the air with his fist; and the gesture was enough to convince everyone around that the right mind was back in the right body. A cheer went up, including a rather hypocritical hooray by Peeves himself.  
  
Harry turned to Hermione again, but she motioned to him to wait. "Peeves," she asked, "is this the end of the spell? There are no further consequences if we kiss again... or do anything?"  
  
"No, Miss, no," said the poltergeist greasily. "The spell is over and done. You will never suffer from it again." Under Dumbledore's keen gaze, he seemed to wilt even further. "It's true!"  
  
"Well, then" grinned Harry, as Peeves was released from Dumbledore's grip and flew wildly off amidst gales of derisory laughter, "let's do it again. Any objections?"  
  
"None whatever," answered Hermione as she grinned back and brought her head close to his.  
  
(A few feet away, though nobody was watching, Luna and Ron were doing pretty much the same. Ron would never again feel jealous of his famous friend: in fact, he soon became disposed to feel sorry for anyone who was not loved by Luna. Anyone else just was not the same.)  
  
It took still another year, and much struggle and grief, for Voldemort to be defeated; but the roots for his defeat were laid on that day. And that was not only because of the capture of Lucius Malfoy, unable for once to wiggle out of the evidence of his crimes; but because love itself, the love of man and woman, was at the heart of all the events that led to that last memorable day of fighting and deception. Love had defeated him once, long ago, the love of mother and child; love was now to complete the cycle, the love of husband and wife.  
  
END OF THE STORY. 


End file.
